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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27447664">Five times Caelum visited the Lamia for help</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eipthor/pseuds/Eipthor'>Eipthor</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Female Harry Potter, Gen, Inspired by The Rigel Black Chronicles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:01:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27447664</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eipthor/pseuds/Eipthor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>And one time Gavril let Lestrange help Kasten.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rigel Black Exchange Round 2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Five times Caelum visited the Lamia for help</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualPeruser/gifts">CasualPeruser</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kasten’s first impression of Caelum Lestrange was that of a show crup he had once been given care of. The hair was nowhere near the same honeyed-walnut color, but they shared a certain skeletal litheness in their frame, with muscles placed efficiently but sparingly. Both were well groomed and postured from sharp tailored sleeves to prim and proper tail. But what struck him most was the haughtiness that came from good breeding. The crup had prowled about the manor grounds, seeking out the best spots for sunning and barking at any creature that got too close to its domain. It was a blight upon the household for nearly a fortnight, before one day it badly frightened the smallest of the thestral foals. The foal twisted an ankle and limped for a week. The crup was eaten. </p><p>This is what came to mind when Caelum first burst into his lab, jarring the shelf closest to the door and half blinding him with the lumos he carried. The moke he was examining started, and scampered off to crevices unknown. </p><p>“I’m looking for a more concentrated alternative to armadillo bile. I’ve asked around the more reputable shops, but none seem to carry what I’m looking for. Heiress Potter speaks highly of your.... novel ingredient preparation. You will, of course, be appropriately compensated.”</p><p>His praise was undermined by the way his gaze wandered about the dark room, sneering at imagined cobwebs. He seemed oblivious to the glare Gavril was aiming at his back. The boy had woken him from his afternoon nap across the front desk. He was cracking the knuckles of his wand hand to keep himself from hauling the boy out by his scruff. They didn’t need whatever trouble his parents would bring down on the alleys. </p><p>Armadillo bile was the active ingredient in wit-sharpening potion and from the looks of things, Lestrange needed all the brains he could get. Best to just get him out as quickly as possible. If the Potter heiress ever came back, he’d have words about sending his sort down here.</p><p>“Crishwick venom. You’ll have to dehydrate it first to get its undiluted essence and you’ll also need to counteract its hallucinogenic properties. It also reacts badly with the ginger, so that will need to be substituted as well, but it should get the job done.” Though perhaps someone in need of a wit-sharpening potion was not the best person to be brewing one, particularly one so drastically altered. Though, it would only be a mild poisoning, Kasten supposed. Should he be writing this down for him?</p><p>“Ginger? I’m not- This is for vital, groundbreaking potions research.”</p><p>“My most sincere apologies.” Gavril snorted. </p><p>“You’d best be off now, little lord,” Gavril said, all but herding the lordling out the door. </p><p>Good riddance, he thought, glancing about the room for his wayward moke.</p><p>RBE-R2</p><p>“I see the wit-sharpener didn’t take.”</p><p>What was he-</p><p>“Oh, Har-de-har-har. Hilarious, truly. I need an alternative for umbrella leaves.” He pulled his arm away from a shelf it had brushed against and held out his cuff to examine it. Who knows what sort of contaminants there were in a hovel like this? Really, the halfblood had no taste in friends. </p><p>“For Ubbly’s Unction? You can’t just keep taking different mind potions and hope to get less dim. Quite the opposite, in fact. Have you been to see a healer about this problem? I could be more helpful if I had a confirmed diagnosis.” </p><p>“They’re not for me. It’s potion’s guild research.” Vital research, beyond a half-breed’s capacity to understand. </p><p>“I’m sure. And what’s in it for me? You’ve yet to pay me for the Crishwick venom.”</p><p>“You didn’t give me any venom.” There aren’t any Crishwicks outside of Burundi, and they were heavily protected. They’d been poached to near extinction for their venom, which gave all the giddy confidence of felix felicis, but none of the luck. If you could strain out its potent violet color, you could make a fortune on a black market forgery. What little that was legitimately sold was closely monitored and had to be applied for well in advance. It would take weeks to track even a vial down, and that’s if it would even work. </p><p>“You didn’t ask for any,” Kasten retorted, gesturing to a shelf behind him, illuminating  an entire jar of the violently purple venom. Glancing about the shadowed room he realized the vampire’s collection was the first he’d seen more extensive than his own. Snallygaster feathers and urswine spit. Caelum had thought himself fortunate to snap up a few dozen basilisk scales two summers ago. Kasten had what looked to be part of a liver and a whole pint of blood. </p><p>“How much per vial?” </p><p>“I don’t need your galleons. If you can get me a sample of something I don’t have, you can have all the venom you need.”</p><p>Caelum gritted his teeth. With a collection this extensive it would be near impossible to find something he didn’t have without parting with something irreplaceable. Unless he wanted blood. Caelum was not quite that desperate. Though mother was having the Goyle's for dinner next week. Perhaps if one of them were suitably inebriated.</p><p>“And the umbrella leaves?”</p><p>“Charred dwarf furze pods. I’ll even throw them in with venom.”</p><p>“Lovely.” It was not lovely. “Pleasure doing business with you.”</p><p>RBE-R2</p><p>“What is that?” It looked like the bastard child of a lobster and a pancreas. It was squishy and grey. Its skin looked congealed and it made a disturbing chattering noise that could only come from teeth whose location Kasten did not wish to contemplate. Kasten placed one of his thicker tomes atop the cage to prevent its skirting across the table. Kasten did not appreciate the gleeful smirk across Lestrange's face. He looked slightly more worn than when he'd last saw him, but Kasten suspected he wouldn't look nearly as polished had he tried to cart this monstrosity all the way though the alleys. </p><p>“That is a skrewt. Very rare. This is the only one in England. There isn’t another on continental Europe in fact. This one’s only just hatched, with some shell still in the cage as well. I couldn’t part with it for anything less than a dozen vials of crishwick venom, with the furze pods of course.“</p><p>Unable to move the cage, the skrewt began to growl.</p><p>“There’s no such thing as a skrewt.”</p><p>“Have you not heard of them? I suppose they are a bit esoteric. I’d only expect to find it in the most refined collections. Yours is charming of course, but not comprehensive. A bit limited really. Are you sure you’re qualified to care for it?”</p><p>“Of course I am, if that is really a skrewt. It looks like some poor creature you’ve transfigured inside out.” And perhaps grafted on to. He leaned in closer trying to find the seams or some other fault. </p><p>“As I said, it's quite young. The carapace hasn’t fully grown in yet. You can see it forming just there.” He indicated toward a small cluster of barnacles growing on the underside.</p><p>Kasten nudged its body with a glass rod, hoping to get a better look at its abdomen. The body seemed to squish in around the rod, before squirting a gout of flame to relieve the pressure.</p><p>“Did it just sneeze fire at me?”</p><p>“This end is the head, actually.” Caelum tried to indicate with his own rod, when the apparent head surged out and bit it. He tried to pull it back, but gave it up for lost when the rod began to crack under its jaws. “Well, that can sometimes happen. Best to just stay clear of the jaws and pincers and the… fire. They’re quite rambunctious.”</p><p>Lestrange had not transfigured this. It was some unholy union between a manticore and a fire crab, and possibly an acromantula from the look of the eyes. It was obscene. Still the possibilities circled before his mind. This was a new creature, and he was perhaps the first to study it. How was it even possible? Fully grown manticores needed to eat 20 pounds of meat per day. Fire crabs ate 5 pounds of greens and 15 pounds of solid rock used to stoke its internal flame with the result forged onto its shell. The digestive tract alone must be fascinating. </p><p>He grabbed a bit of shell from the edge of the cage. It looked like an ordinary egg, but with fine veins of a pinkish mineral running through it. He took it over to the corner where glasses of varying magnification hung. It looked almost like quartz, but it wasn’t forming in a regular geometric pattern. Could it have warped in its mother's forges? There was something silvery here too….</p><p>“Well, I take your silence to mean we have a deal. I’ll just take these and go.”</p><p>RBE-R2</p><p>“You can’t just bring a puffskein.” Caelum had been pecking at her all the way up the alley. Needling was just how he showed affection she supposed. Caelum was very critical in all aspects of his life, and it was a trait that served him well as a potioneer. He was always quick to point out a flaw, but if he liked you, it would be one that he thought could be fixed. </p><p>“Puffskeins are cute.”</p><p>“They are common. Your vampire has the largest ingredient collection I’ve ever seen. It is insulting. They are useless as ingredients. You will make me seem cheap.”</p><p>“It’s still a magical creature. It can’t be entirely useless. I think he’d appreciate the challenge. He seemed to like the kneazle just fine.”</p><p>A kneazle! Caelum had sent cuttings of a carnivorous tulip bred generations ago to guard the Lestrange family castle, an odd incendiary mushroom he’d picked up with Master Whitaker in Chile, and whatever that monstrous skrewt was that Rookwood had sent him.</p><p>Harry reached up to mute the bell as they entered the Lamia, </p><p>“Sneaking in, are we?”</p><p>“Good afternoon Gavril. Sorry, I was trying not to wake you. How’s Irina?”</p><p>“Beautiful, as ever. Still courting, I see. You’ll have to try harder if you want to keep up with the little lordling behind you.”</p><p>Harry froze briefly before thawing at a sparkle of smirking fang. Vampires and courting were intimidating on their own. The idea of them together. Best to just keep going and not think too hard on it. </p><p>“Still just for his projects," she said, gesturing with her cage. "Wait, Caelum. You’ve been bringing Kasten creatures, too?”</p><p>Caelum did not respond. The idea of being with a vampire or a halfblood romantically was displeasing. More importantly how was he in a supposed love triangle with a vampire and a halfblood where he was not the axis? Had they no sense? Harry had at least bought him dinner. Kasten had made no such overtures. He had given him a skrewt and carnivorous flowers and somehow he was losing to a kneazle. Though in hindsight they were rather murderous for courting gifts. He had been rather pleased with Rookwood's skrewt, though given the nature of the beast, perhaps Rookwood hadn't intended it as fondly.</p><p>“Hello, Kasten.” Merlin she was chipper. </p><p>“Harry.  I see you’ve brought Lestrange along. How are the wit-enhancers going?”</p><p>Harry threw him a look of disappointment. In the potions field, potions to enhance the mind were considered almost as spurious as love potions. </p><p>“I am not brewing wit-sharpening potions. I am working toward my master’s thesis on applying your shaped imbuing technique to mind potions.” </p><p>“That’s wonderful. I hadn’t even considered mind potions. Master Snape and I have only worked on using shaped imbuing to affect the body. Of course, if you've already begun working with shaped imbuing, you're certainly far enough with your occlumency to work on mind potions. Only, how exactly are you testing your theories? They can't be medicinal mind potions. St. Mungo’s would never let you run a trial without at least a mastery under your belt, and you’d never get published without a credible hospital behind you. So, I guess you must be working with non prescriptive mind potions. Only, most of those can go badly wrong if you made them too strong with imbuing. A babbling brew could cause permanent speech loss-”</p><p>“Halfblood.”</p><p>“Even a calming draft done wrong can make someone comatose. No one would volunteer to test something like that and you’d have to test on a person with mind potions. I - Caelum, are you experimenting on yourself? “</p><p>“Brat.”</p><p>“Caelum! That’s extremely dangerous! Not to mention they’ll never publish your thesis if they find out you were on mind potions while writing it.”</p><p>“Breathe, Potter. It’s fine. I’m not dangerously destabilizing any existing potions. I’m trying to make a new one.” That probably wasn’t better, but Potter didn’t seem to have noticed that. “It’s all just theory for now anyway,” mostly. “Which is why I need an alternative to niffler whiskers.”</p><p>“Oh, well that’s easy. You just need erumpent hairs. Let me just check my kit… Here you go.” She held out a small bundle of long silky hairs bound in twine. That was easy. Too easy. He wondered what he would do with the strange bird lizard Rookwood had sent him. It was currently trying to eat out the bottom of his pocket. Perhaps it could be a downpayment, should he need more ingrediants. </p><p>She pulled the bundle back. </p><p>“You know, if you just told us what you were making, we could help you find a better signifying ingredient.” She sent him a pleading look. An exceedingly unfair pleading look. He looked to Kasten, but he had apparently abandoned the conversation to look at some scales through a greenish pane of glass. He was just letting them talk around him. Well, Menesthes and Zosimo.</p><p>“I need an ingredient that signifies the mind as a whole. I’m looking into counters to the unforgivables. The imperius separates the mind from the whole. The cruciatus separates the body. The killing curse separates the soul. I’m starting with the imperius because we know it can be countered and safely tested. I just need a signifying ingredient for the mind and a spell to imbue to either tie the mind to the whole, or shield the mind from the spell.”</p><p>RBE-R2</p><p>“Here.” There was a feathered lizard being shoved in Kasten's face. Knowing Lestrange, it probably spat acid. He batted it away.</p><p>“What is that thing?”</p><p>“It’s a fwoogon.”</p><p>“A what?” Wings sprang out from under Lestrange’s fingers leaving him holding just the barbed tail as it tried to dart away. Its mouth was muzzled and Lestrange had scrapes on his fingers from its spikes. There was a set of four long dark scratches across the left side of his face. </p><p>“A fwoogon.”</p><p>“Is this like your skrewt?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Probably.” He pulled the pink monster back to his chest and under control before thrusting it toward Kasten, making sure to keep the mouth facing away from him all the while. “Here, I need to stay a week.”</p><p>“You’ll need to talk to Gavril. He rents the rooms. Also I don’t think he accepts payment in the form of feathered demon snakes.” His gaze shifted tellingly. </p><p>“I don’t need a room. I need this room with access to your lab. I need to brew for my mastery.”</p><p>“So you already tried Gavril and he laughed at you.”</p><p>“I’ll have you know this is one of a- ouch.” The fwoogon had necked another small nick into his cheek. </p><p>RBC-R2</p><p>Lestrange had been living with him in the Lamia basement for six months. They didn’t talk about the marks on Lestrange that were too big for a fwoogon or why he had picked an antidote to imperius for his mastery, or he could only pay his rent in deadly creatures. When Harry moved in after the tournament, they didn’t talk about Rigel Black. He was never anyone they had known.</p><p>Instead they talked about how to harness sound as a magical component, whether you could imbue occlumency shields and the ethics of dissecting your cute but deadly fwoogon for potions ingredients when you didn’t know if he was the last of his species. </p><p>Sometimes Kasten didn’t talk at all, just listened to them putter around him. They knew when to leave him to his essences and when to draw him out.  Kasten had forgotten what it was like to be attended to in that way. </p><p>Aural had seen his bright silent squib nephew who would never go to Durmstag and given him the bite. Gavril had seen that he wasn’t coping and had given him his own space, the lab. Irina and the rest of the coven always brought him rare specimens when they came across them. </p><p>For once it was nice to have someone who understood his interests, rather than just pandering to them. Someone who would seek him out for advice, even though he was just a newborn. And he more than knew they felt the same. </p><p>It wasn’t quite affection, no matter Gavril’s prodding. Kasten had never sought that, even from his parents. And for all his fondness he doubted he would ask his uncle to keep them beyond their natural time. </p><p>Someday they would leave him. Their troubles would blow over and they'd leave the lodge. They'd shine in the wider world and outgrow him, though perhaps by then there would be a new generation of over eager apprentices to keep him company. </p><p>It was a comfortable camaraderie. His skin felt right around him, not to snug or burdensome, for the first time in his 65 years.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A fwoogon is a hybrid of a fwooper and a hungarian horntail, cute but deadly.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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